The Divine Wolf... or?

Ark didn't want to waste any time since that would only complicate things. Making use of both his stealth skill as well as his darkness magic, Ark easily slipped into the shadows and made his hasty escape with Arduin sitting tightly on his back. The rumbling of footsteps didn't stop whatsoever, but when they arrived outside of Arduin's cell, he was already gone, with no one else in sight.

"Damn it, find them quickly, lest you want to lose your head!"

They were under the orders of the third prince. Their plan was to loosen the security a little to bait the other escaped heroes into trying to rescue their friend. They didn't expect to get stumped like this when they did that though.

Ark had to take it relatively easy though when he slipped past the guards in the fairly narrow hallway, even if he was borderline invisible right now, a slight mistake would lead to them exposing him.

When he exited the prison, Ark was a little stunned, and his expression darkened slightly. What he saw was a ton of guards patrolling the area, with majority of them stationed outside of the small prison, it was obvious what they were there for. Since the sun was shining fairly brightly, there weren't a lot of shadows for Ark to make use of, and without them, spotting him would be fairly easy.

Since his mana pool was almost completely full, Ark decided to just go all-out from the beginning. From the guards' point of view, it was a fairly boring and easy mission. All they had to do was wait here until some idiot would come running out. Apprehending that idiot would be pretty easy as well since they were sure it was one of the heroes who had escaped earlier.

If the person proved to be too strong for them, then they had plenty of back-up lying in wait as well. They were only fairly normal guards, the truly powerful people didn't really care for such a small issue, but with the help of Oscar's influence, some of them were actually not that far away, waiting to attack.

What these guards were not expecting, however, was for a multitude of elemental swords materialising in the air over their heads, before descending rapidly. Even though most of them were able to spot the swords ahead of time, they were still devastated by the attack, and the ones who managed to survive without taking any damage were very disoriented from the surprise attack.

Ark didn't waste any time after using this attack either and he instantly dashed out from his hiding spot when he got the chance to.

Sprinting towards the staircase leading up to the wall, Ark didn't dare slow down in the slightest, since he could feel multiple really strong auras approaching rapidly from afar. Frankly, he didn't expect there to be such strong people on standby nearby, but he was fairly confident in his speed, and since he had the element of surprise, he thought that he would still be able to escape.

Since he didn't want to be caught, Ark used the wind mana in the air to propel himself forward even more than before, and he zoomed past the stairs and arrived on the big wall.

There were only a couple of guards stationed on this part of the wall, and Ark took care of them with ease, they were only supposed to be archers and scouts anyway, not actual fighters. Looking out over the city for a brief moment, Ark was filled with a sense of elation, before he quickly made up his mind and jumped off the wall.

Though the feeling of inertia was a little odd at first, Ark actually rather enjoyed the feeling of falling freely, it filled his gut with a rather enjoyable feeling.

Arduin wasn't feeling as good as Ark did though. He had woken up during the chase, and suddenly waking up to a free fall was scary, to say the least. It actually hurt him as well since he had numerous injuries that had yet to heal. Hearing the soft grunts of pain coming from his back, Ark used a little of his mana to heal his injuries a little.

Arduin couldn't help but be taken aback by the sudden relief of his pain, and he made some weird noises.

Even though Ark wasn't really a fan of the weird noises, he acted like it was nothing, and used the wind to land gently on the ground. Down in the city again, Ark could make use of his darkness attribute once more to slink into the shadows again. He couldn't use the stealth skill since it was still on cooldown, but he didn't really need it either right now.

Normal people wouldn't be able to spot him anyway.

Dashing his way through the city, it didn't take long for Ark to get himself to the city gates. Since he couldn't just waltz out with Arduin on his back, Ark just knocked the guards out before making a run for it. It might've looked very risky on the outside, but it was all a part of his plan from the beginning.

A couple of hundred meters away, Ark ran into Thufrat and Alenia resting with two lesser draconic horses in the shade. Seeing him, they put Arduin on the same horse as Thufrat, and then Alenia got onto the other horse herself.

After turning into his wolf form again, they all speeded off into the distance, quickly leaving the capital of Estridsen behind them. Arduin was still awake, and seeing the youth in a mask that had saved him from the depths of the despair turn into a large wolf turned his world view a little upside down.

Even though he tried not to, as he had read multiple light novels and manga in his old world, Arduin had already put some races in less favourable positions in his mind. Races such as vampires and werewolves were something his old world had been quite engrossed with, and in general, they were seen as slightly wicked creatures.

These stereotypes had invaded his own mindset a little as well, but seeing this creature that seemed to be a werewolf saving his life, he couldn't help but be a little ashamed of himself.

Though they had managed to run away from the capital, the thought of stopping to rest didn't even occur to them until night had already fallen, and their horses were beginning to get noticeably strained by all the running. There were numerous powerhouses residing in the capital, and if even a single one of them actually tried to hunt them down, they would be in for one hell of a nightmare.